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A Boy’s Art – In Narrative

There is a reason why a significantly large portion of my homeschool supplies budget is allotted to Crayola markers, tape and extra-large (18-24″) sketch pads. While Meredith spends her after “school” hours in her room writing songs, working out chords on her guitar, or teaching herself the keyboard, Emelie and Kenny hunker down in the schoolroom sketching, illustrating and coloring.

As I moved from room to room today, viewing Kenny’s artwork pinned on walls and strewn across tabletops, I was reminded of Andrew Pudewa’s talk at this year’s THSC Southwest Convention and Family Conference. Pudewa asserted that girls typically draw nouns while boys draw verbs.

Some of Kenny’s drawings looked to be straight-up “nouns,” while others were more obviously action-oriented. I decided to ask Kenny to pick a few of his favorite pieces and tell me about them.

He started with his newest creation above. I mistakingly called it a shark, but he corrected that supposition.

KENNY: “I meant to make it with a bird-like structure.”

ME: “I’m not seeing it, tell me the story.”

KENNY: “Yeah, the only part that really makes it look like a bird is probably its mouth and feet. If it didn’t have teeth it would probably look a lot more like a bird.”

ME: “Except that it doesn’t have wings?”

KENNY: “It doesn’t need wings because it jumps. It is jumping right now. It jumps very far because its structure lets it do that.”

ME: “So in this drawing it is jumping?”

KENNY: “Yeah, like those flying snakes that crawl up in a tree and jump. They can’t really fly, but it looks like they are flying.”

ME: “Got it.”

KENNY: “Also, see how the eyes are different?”

ME: “Yes, more pointy than most of your artwork.”

KENNY: “Right. The eyes are bent so they would have a different shape from the other circular eyes I have drawn.”

ME: “Are they evil eyes?”

KENNY: “No, it isn’t evil. I was just experimenting with the eyes.”

I love his narrative. Now when I look at this picture I see feet mid-air, in movement as the bird-like creature soars through the air.

ME: “Tell me about ‘Cactus Back’. Dude, can he even lie down?”

KENNY: “Those are not cacti Momma, they are barbs. I got the idea from the Stegosaurus.”

ME: “The Stegosaurus had barbs?”

KENNY: “Not exactly, that is why I got the IDEA from the Stegosaurus.”

ME: “Gotcha.”

KENNY: “I got inspiration for the eye in its belly from my Space Lego set where one of the aliens has an eye on the stomach area.”

ME: “I think the forked tongue gives me the willies.”

KENNY: “Yeah, and the jagged teeth.”

ME: “They don’t really help much.”

KENNY: “It is reaching out to grab its victim with its robot claw arms and then it will run away quietly, but quickly on its really thin legs. The claws dig into the dirt for grip.”

ME: “Remind me not to ask about your drawings right before bedtime.”

When I spied the duck-like creature he made for Emelie I thought it was cute, what with its pink hearts for hands. Kenny quickly informed me they were an experiment.

ME: “An experiment? I don’t get it. It looks like a duck raised by Punky Brewster.”

KENNY: “The hands are claws and I wanted to see if they could bend and still look good. I tried it and I like the effect.”

ME: “To me it looks more like Edward Scissorhands with a manicure.”

KENNY: “Who is that?”

ME: “Hmmm…he is from a movie–except Edward Scissorhands never wore pink.”

KENNY: “Boys can wear pink.”

ME: “Of course they can.”

KENNY: “The bumpy top part of the teeth make this monster half Herbivore. The bottom row of teeth make it a Carnivore too.”

ME: “Interesting.”

KENNY: “I wanted to mix it up a bit.”

ME: *snicker*

KENNY: “He isn’t dancing you know. He is very serious and angry. He is gathering volunteers to fight.”

ME: “Right.”

KENNY: “It isn’t a duck either. It’s a monster.”

The drawing I titled “Spider War” was intended for a practice. Kenny’s Art teacher let them know they would be drawing spiders, so Kenny wanted to get ahead of the game.

KENNY: “I wanted it to just be black and white because we are doing our spider with charcoal in Art class. Then, I got bored with it and drew in a preying mantis getting eaten alive by the spider.”

ME: “Eeew.”

KENNY: “The other Preying Mantis are attacking the spider to get it back for killing their buddy. The blue little things are beetles, the black flying things are wasps, and there are bees.”

ME: “Some of those beetles are big!”

KENNY: “They grow on you as you draw them.”

Kenny’s room is the last of the kids’ rooms to get painted. It still has the old tan color that covered every single surface in this house when we moved in. My bathroom and Kenny’s bedroom are the only two rooms left unpainted. He doesn’t mind too terribly much because we let him press push pins into his wall to show off his artwork. It has made me rethink what we’ll do to the room when we do finally redesign it.

Every drawing in his room is of a war scene.

Every.single.drawing.

ME: “You worked on this one in many different segments. Did you think of all of this BEFORE drawing it?”

KENNY: “No, it came together as I was drawing.”

ME: “Tell me about it.”

KENNY: “The stick men are modern day soldiers. They are attacking the monster straight-on to protect their city. The green guys on the monster’s back are part of the monster; they are helping to protect themselves and their home.”

ME: “Who is winning.”

KENNY: “The monster of course.”

I particularly like this six-headed monster. The spiked tail is meant as a defense mechanism or a weapon with its flaming hot barb.

Heather Sanders

Hi. I’m Heather, a freelance writer living in Huntsville, a smallish town on the tail-end of the East Texas Pineywoods.
Twenty years ago, I married Jeff, the love of my life, and shortly after, we chose to “go forth and multiply.” We have three kids: Emelie, Meredith and Kenny. We homeschool. It's what we do, and it works for us.
Tired of feeling overwhelmed, we recently "faithsized" our family into a 960 square foot lake cabin in need of renovation. I write at HeatherSanders.com about faith and simplifying your desires so you can be content right here and right now

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http://home-school-coach.com Home School Coach

One of my favorite quotes is by George Turnbull, 1742. “By familiar conversation, children’s curiosity may be roused much more effectually, and by it they may be taught a great deal more in a little time, than can possibly be done in the austere magisterial way of calling them to a lecture.” In short, a spontaneous conversation between parent and child teaches more than the best lecture.”

I loved this post because it is such a good example of a familiar conversation. Children learn as they engage in talking with someone about what they are learning. Kenny was able to clarify his thoughts and I’ll bet he expanded them as he went along.

This is one of the best parts of mothering, when we take time to do it, to listen to a child, feel them, engage with them and learn about them and in the process help them learn.

I had a wonderful familiar conversation with an 11 year old about math and another with a 3 year old about helium in balloons. It doesn’t matter the topic just that we listen and share with a child.

Thank you for this post because I just completely enjoyed reading this wonderful and loving conversation. Way to go mom!!

DEB

I always look at Ree’s site and read this part too. You have a talented son and I really like that he hangs his art on his walls. You are building wonderful memories that one day the kids will look back and say remember when………

http://Walkworthy.us/wblog Liz in OK

Oh, YES! Here are my entries to prove this theory:http://www.walkworthy.us/wblog/?p=1010
though I didn’t classify it as a verb/noun difference, but rather blood/no blood. I have an entire folder full of artwork from my youngest (boy), proving that he can take ANY topic or medium in art class & introduce blood (via destruction by aliens, sharks, soldiers…).

Elaine

My prediction: Kenny will go to college and major in biology and double minor in art and political science. Smart guy!

Staci

Love his pictures and story…My kids all tend to draw things they want to make… more like blueprints or plans. My son creates wonderful inventions, my first daughter is big on fashion design, and my youngest does a lot of space design – how she wants to rearrange her room. : ) All very creative – but with a sense of realistic purpose.

deb m

Awesome art! I’m inspired by it!

http://beccaphotog.blogspot.com rebecca

wow wow wow.
colour me impressed!

http://grannymountain.blogspot.com Joycee

Such talent, would have went with my post today about Crystal Bridges opening!

Absolutely right! I have only boys (three). When I compare their work, the differences are the dinosaurs in Levis paintings, the military vehicles in Leos and the Star wars and dessert themes in Linus work. But the war and fight is in all of their work.
When I see the girls paintings at school, I can see that their approach to art is completely different even if I never had a conversation with one of them on that topic.

http://www.iliveinanantbed.blogspot.com I Live in an Antbed

We LOVE Andrew Pudewa and use his IEW and Poetry Curriculum. And I definitely think he’s onto a lot of things! 🙂

Kenny’s art is so fresh and original!

Some of our kids need direction to create, some are independently creative. It is always interesting to see what they come up with. We actually have drawing as part of our school day in our homeschool. We use The Drawing Textbook by Bruce McIntyre. It is a little bitty yellow book packed full of simple drawing lessons based on the principles of line drawing. He used to be an illustrator for Disney and the lessons to be copied are whimsical and fun, but teach so much about perspective and technique. The kids’ and I have learned a great deal and our drawings are really improving. And I’m not artistic.

Mary Anne

Love your posts, and your son’s creativity reminds me so much of my son when he was that age! It’s so much fun to see how their minds work, isn’t it?

Theresa in Alberta

Kenny, you are one smart and talented guy!

Emily in IL

great post – love Kenny’s art work – VERY creative.

I saw this website promoted the other day before Google Reader was revamped (boo) and thought you might like it too. http://www.childsown.com/

Marsha

My daughter’s art passion is people, specifically girls and women. She loves history and tends to really be drawn to Colonial and Pioneer America, so her subjects are usually from this time. While she loves to paint too, drawing is her passion and at age 11 is turning into quite the artist. She has been blessed with an Art Instructor who sees her potential so she takes lessons two days a week totaling sometimes 6 hours, but every moment she is not involved in school, church or family outings(and actually with any car trips this would include art supplies in tow as well) is spent with a sketch pad and her favorite HB pencil in hand. She wants to be an artist and Art instructor when she grows up!

Natasha R

I’m amazed at his imagination and the ability to transfer that so well on paper =)

http://wachsenlassen.blogspot.com rebecca

thanks so much for sharing these pictures. i have a boy too, who likes to draw similar pictures but i haven’t seen any other ones like these. so it gives a feeling of having something in common. and in addition it might inspire and encourage those boys to keep on doing arts in their own ways.
thank you to the whole family for your much appreciated inputs!!!

CarrieZ

First of all, he’s very talented! You could sell prints of those on etsy, even.

Second, I once knew a boy growing up who had an entire corkboard wall in his room. They used those peel/stick cork tiles, I think. It would be perfect for a situation with an artist like this! 🙂

http://www.omsh.com OMSH

CarrieZ, I have thought of this for the wall behind his bed. It would be rather pricey, but a lot cheaper than repairing sheetrock!

Robin in New Jersey

What a creative young man you have there! I love that you let him hang his art on the wall. Walls can always be spakled and repainted~~kids are only young once!

http://www.omsh.com OMSH

Emily, this is amazing. I’m having so much fun skimming through all her blog entries too!

Miss B

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again…That kid’s artwork is exceptional. The ideas are so creative, and the color combinations are beautiful. I, personally, do not wish to have any monster/dinosaur/war artwork in my home, but let me know when he branches out from that. I will be one of the first people in line to buy his artwork!

http://days-of-natasha.blogspot.com Natasha D.

I love the drawings and commentary! He has such an imagination. I especially love the last picture where he says he’s “not that kind of guy”! I think it’s awesome that is bedroom is becoming filled with the drawings too- definitely much more interesting to look at than boring paint or plain wallpaper.

http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog Rose

This is so awesome!!! I love your art, Kenny!

I love the concept that (usually) girls draw nouns and boys draw verbs. When I was a girl all I drew was houses. Houses, houses, houses. Some with a tree, some with a rainbow.